


merciful deeds

by Mizzy



Category: Alice (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizzy/pseuds/Mizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hatter/Alice. You can take the boy out of Wonderland, but you can't take all of Wonderland out of the boy. Especially when old sins have a habit of casting shadows wherever you run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	merciful deeds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kijikun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kijikun/gifts).



> A real life flare-up caused me to post this one day late, accidentally defaulting. Much apologies to the pinch-hitter that had to step in even though I've had this ready to post for days! Sorry!
> 
> For the request: Something with sledgehammer Hatter, with a Hatter/Alice happy ending.

Hatter wakes up and just about manages to clamp his hand over his mouth before a shout can escape. He bites down on a couple of his fingers, muffling the sound, and does his best to quieten his breathing - even though each breath feels like it must be burning the air, because they're burning his throat right down to his lungs. 

Or maybe that's a flight of fancy enabled by his ridiculously pounding heart.

It's only when he's lowering his hand that he realises he used his right hand to muffle the sounds of his night terrors. He checks his teeth nervously, feeling worriedly along his jawline. Nothing's broken. Panic slips into his throat and he stares at his hand. There's no blood.

That doesn't always mean something good.

For a moment, it's like Hatter can't breathe, and the world spins around him, like he's in the Tweedle's torture chamber again. Only in this place, there's no magical suppression of his gift.   
In this place, he can feel his right arm pulsing with its potential, and he has to calm himself down.

The consequences of not managing it would be unbearable. Hatter had been hoping to calm his heartbeat but it's going so fast now he can feel the echo of it in his bones. He's scared, but he has to face his fear, the ongoing fear that's been screaming at the base of his skull since the fateful row which ended in him agreeing to share Alice's bed.

Hatter turns his head slowly, and Alice... is fine.

He lets out a breath that doesn't burn so much. She's okay, she's alive, he hasn't hurt her.

He'd tried to fight her when she insisted he share her bed, telling her it wasn't Wonderland custom, that they should be hand-fasted, that it wasn't safe . Alice had pitched a fit at all three.   
  
_When in Rome_ , Alice said a lot for the first one, and  _marriage means nothing_ for the second and for the third one there had been a storm of words that hurt Hatter's brain, words like  _I've gotten this far in life relying on myself_ and  _women can be stronger than men_ and  _I'm a freaking Judo sensei, kyū-dan technically but I would be a jū-dan if I hadn't accidentally bumped into Kanō Yukimitsu a few years ago; the man bears a hell of a grudge_ and some more words like  _feminism_ and  _misogyny_ that Hatter tried to look up on something called a Wikipedia but his brain just hurt more so he gave up.

Then Alice played a card that made Hatter's brain go sailing out of the window, and his nursemaid had always told him,  _Hatter, my boy, men have a secondary brain which can overrule the primary one, and one day you'll meet someone - or several someones - who can turn the key and unlock that brain. Best to just stay away from people, my pet ._

She was mad - all the Hatter employees were - that's why the Wonderland saying goes  _as mad as a Hatter's employee_ . But it turns out she was right. Kissing Alice is amazing and Hatter could do it forever, but Alice whispered promises against his skin and, well, Hatter couldn't say no to her ever. 

Even though his primary brain had wanted to on that particular score.

She didn't know how dangerous it was, inviting Hatter into her bed on a permanent basis.

She has no idea how close to death she brushes daily, but by the Gods, he loves her. And he will protect her to the very ends of Earth and Wonderland.   
She's still asleep. Luckily for Hatter she's a deep sleeper. Hatter's known a few girls in the past - no steady girlfriends until Alice - but the ones he's slept next to, they've all been light sleepers. It's a downside of Wonderland living; diverse inhabitants meant diverse threats. It was considered unlucky to be a deep sleeper in Wonderland, because waking up a second sooner sometimes made the difference between life free, or life trapped in the Hearts' basement having your emotions leeched out.

The Queen of Hearts rarely restricted the process to alien, non-Wonderland creatures, after all. There's a reason Hatter sourced all his teas from Freetrade sources. Hatter paid handsomely for emotions mined from voluntary subjects. Of course, he marked the teas up in price handsomely too for the effort. His clientele were the sort not to kick up a fuss, and if they did, well...

At least in Wonderland, Hatter's reputation preceded him.

It's different here on Earth. Here, Hatter can be whoever he wants to be. He doesn't have to be who he was in Wonderland. Here he doesn't have his past looking over his shoulder every five minutes, despite what the head pounding nightly dreams he receive try and tell him otherwise.

Alice stirs a little, her breath warm and damp into her pillow. Hatter can't help the smile that crosses his face. Sometimes on Earth his cheeks ache from all the smiling he does; unlike Wonderland, each of the smiles he uses are genuine.

On Earth, each of the smiles he uses are for Alice. He finds he can't hold back with her; every moment they share Hatter enjoys, like it's going to be his last moment alive.

Old habits die hard.

Hatter's not going to get back to sleep. He's tried everything in Wonderland and on Earth. Nothing helps. Once one of his episodes has woken him up, nothing can lull him back to sleep. He glances out of the window. It's still dark outside, but then, it's still Winter. Alice tells him the days and nights change length on Earth, but it's a difficult concept to wrap his head around; days and nights are exactly the same length in Wonderland.

His heartbeat's slowing now. Alice's body as it rises and falls under their quilt is as soothing as any remedy he's tried. Hatter could almost sleep, if his sins would let him. His right hand is free from blood, but that's not always been the case.

Instead of failing to sleep again, Hatter settles back against the headboard, wraps his arms around a pillow, and watches Alice.

If he can keep controlling himself like this, if he can keep waking up with his sledgehammer hand free from blood, then maybe he can keep her. She has no idea how close to death she brushes daily, but by the Gods, he loves her. And he will protect her to the very ends of Earth and Wonderland.

Even if it means protecting her from himself. 

* * *

Hatter's sitting on the side of a giant room filled with seats. It's not his first time. It's his first New York Open Judo Tournament. He looks like he could be just anyone's boyfriend, sitting in what Alice calls bleachers , ready to cheer her on.

He looks safe. Normal. No one's eyeballing him. No one's muttering about him. Hardly anyone has even noticed him. Hatter likes it, a lot. Here on Earth he can be anything he wants to be.

Here on Earth the only thing he wants to be is _Alice's ._

He's researched quite a bit on how to enjoy a Judo Tournament when one doesn't exactly enjoy the concept of fighting for fun. Fighting for fun, for sport, is a concept that's relatively unheard of in Wonderland.

Wonderland's a place where one had to fight only to survive. In Hatter's case, this hasn't always been escaping from the Queen of Heart's incompetent card soldiers, but that's something he's keen to forget.

It's another curiosity that Hatter tags onto his list of weird things about Earth.

He has to clap at these things just for Alice's joy at taking part.

Joy is a universal constant for both lands, and it's definitely joy on Alice's face when she's out in the middle of the blue square mat. Even when her opponent tumbles her to the floor, making Hatter's stomach clench uneasily, Alice is still smiling.

It's especially hard for Hatter to be mad at something that makes Alice smile.

Even if Alice suddenly can't go anywhere Judo-related without Alistair Bingley showing up.

He's apparently an old boyfriend, something Alice only says with shifty eyes, sweaty palms and Alistair's overbearing, pompous attitude around her. He's shown up at four of these odd tournaments, bustling into her personal space and saying such obnoxious things that Hatter's had to sit on his right hand the whole time, because Wonderland laws don't apply here.

On Wonderland, anyone who riled Hatter up (got sent flying across the room for their trouble) -just got mocked.

On Earth, you get sent to a jail that's not more psychologically tormenting than the Queen of Heart's physical torture.

Hatter's had enough of even the latter type of jail for one lifetime.

Not that he's ever told Alice he's been in jail. He just likes to assume he seems the type.

Hatter looks down at his right hand.

There's a lot of things he hasn't told Alice. 

* * *

It's after the tournament, now, and Alistair's being a prat. He's been baiting Hatter pretty much non-stop, about how his girlfriend can kick more ass than him. He hasn't out right asked Hatter to try some Judo so he can do that Alpha male thing of showing Alice who's the strongest male around, but it's only a matter of time.

Hatter's been polite, holding back, but in the parking lot of the tournament, Alistair's bristling about his loss - in his category he got knocked out two rounds before Alice did. Alice made the semi-final of hers. Hatter wants to bask in her joy, but Alistair's not making it easy, and he's hanging around them like a terrible smell.

All her previous boyfriends have been into Judo. Hatter flushes despite himself when Alice tells Alistair (and could their names match any better? Hatter and Alice just sounds weird , even by Wonderland standards, but Alice and Alistair, that's a perfect match) that he works in construction.   
Alice sounds proud but Alistair sneers and makes a joke about Hatter not being very muscular for someone who hefts bricks around all day.

"I'm quick on my feet," Hatter tells him, and that's the wrong thing to say, because Alistair pauses by Alice's car and looks at him, consideringly.

"Then why don't you practice Judo? Your girlfriend's an amazing teacher." Alistair leers at Alice, and makes sure Hatter knows he doesn't just mean Judo.

Alice bristles, and puts herself between Hatter and Alistair, protecting Hatter. It's amazing how such a gesture can make Hatter feel queasy and still eleven ways in love all at the same time.

"And you even let a girl protect you," Alistair says, and Alice and Hatter bristle in unison.

"This girl could smack you into next year-" Alice says, at the same time as Hatter says, "I thought it was policy that men couldn't hit girls, but Alice can hit you-"

"Now now," Alistair says, "I was only joshing." He shrugs. "Your boy says he's quick on his feet, I'd just like to see. How about you and me just have a friendly little face-off?" He pushes up into Hatter's space, and Hatter can feel his right arm pulse and he can feel Alistair's blood on his hands already even before he's done anything, and he can hear Alice's worried breathing, and all her previous boyfriends have been Judo experts and Hatter could beat them all, he could rip them apart with one hand-

Hatter steps back, his face downcast.

"I knew you were a coward," Alistair says, just loud enough for Alice to hear it too. Hatter can imagine how disappointed she looks. Alice obviously likes men who can fight for themselves; she won't want him, now she knows him for a coward.

He pushes his head down and walks away.

"You can find someone better," Alistair tells Alice as Hatter pushes past her, and Hatter blocks his ears, because it's true, she can, Alice can find someone without his past, without his problem.

She can find someone who might not accidentally kill her in her sleep.

But Alice, his Alice, is also stubborn. She follows him.

"Hatter. _Hatter_."

"It's okay," he tells her, "you can go back to him. I won't chase you."

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't want a coward like me. It's okay."

" _Hatter_."

He's never been able to resist the sound of her voice. He turns on his heel, and looks at her. Perhaps the despair he's feeling is on his face, because she stalls, concern washing across her beautiful face.

"You're _jealous_ ," she says, like in disbelief. "Alistair and I-"

That sentence makes Hatter feel instantly queasy. "I'm not jealous."

"There's nothing there, Hatter. He came onto me a couple of years ago. I shot him down. He's not my type."

"Sure, attractive, athletic, blond-" Hatter snaps the words out, and then holds them back in - with his left hand this time, palm pushed to his mouth. "Huh. I guess I am jealous." He blinks at her, suddenly unsure. "I'm sorry?"

Alice is shaking her head but she's also grinning. "C'mon. Let's get you home." She snuggles into him as they walk back to her car - Hatter's not allowed to learn to drive until he can operate the toaster safely. "You've got nothing to worry about, you know," she says softly, into the side of his neck.

Hatter holds her close, thinks about how close he was to flattening Alistair Bingley where he stood, and wishes that were true. 

* * *

When it finally happens, the thing that Hatter's been dreading the most, it can be at least tempered by one thing:

He saves a life doing it.

He and Alice are walking back from her dojo. Alistair Bingley just happened to drop by, Hatter just managed not to kill him. Alice smiled proudly at him when he smiled at Alistair and stacked the mats while Alistair fawned all over Alice.

Alice, because she has a mean streak that Hatter adores, groped Hatter as he leaned over a table and up to the hooks for his coat, in plain view of Alistair Bingley. Alistair withdrew pretty quickly after that.

Hatter's just thinking maybe things are going to be fine after all when it happens: a car, hurtling off the road, the driver out of control, and a girl on the sidewalk who can't be any more than eight years old standing in the way.

He doesn't think, he just reacts.

It's only when the car impacts into the wall, and he's covering the girl's body with his own, inches from the impact that he realises what he's done.

Hatter straightens, hands the girl over to a confused and babbling mother, and stares over the smoking wreckage for a long moment at Alice.

Alice, who he pushed to one side to save her.

Alice, who's in a heap on the sidewalk, holding an injured arm and staring at him with shocked, wide, blue eyes.

Alistair's right in that Hatter's a coward.

His heart pounding, Hatter turns and runs. 

* * *

Alice finds him.

Of course she does.

Hatter doesn't know Earth well enough to slip away completely unknown. Still, the time it takes for her to find him - sat on a park bench near the alleyway they both came out of Wonderland in - gives them both time to clarify their thoughts.

Alice is silent when she comes to sit next to him. There's a support bandage on her wrist and a brilliant black eye forming on her face. Hatter can see that much from just the corner of his eye; the real damage could be so much worse.

"So," Alice says, after a long, long pause. "Here's the part where you apologise for hurting me a little in the quest to save a little girl from death. It would be terrible of me not to accept that apology."

"Of course I'm sorry," Hatter starts, and then turns to look at her in surprise. "What?"

"I'm only a little hurt. Physically and emotionally, I mean. More emotionally, actually. I'm mostly hurt that you'd think I'd be upset with you." Her voice is grave, but her hand slides closer to touch him.  He flinches when her fingertips touch his knee, and her eyes go flint-hard. "Okay, now I'm offended."

"Sorry," Hatter says, "sorry, sorry-"

"Why don't you just tell me why you legged it out of there as if you were the drunk driver that nearly squashed a little girl into the wall?"

She's being much too patient, much too kind. Hatter swallows, and it's like fire again, and he starts to shrug off his jacket.

"Um," Alice says, "I love you but this isn't really the place-"

Hatter rolls his eyes and she grins. The smile falters, because this is a serious moment, and Hatter has to tell her, he has to show her. She has to know why he needs to be away from her. He rolls up his t-shirt sleeve all the way to his shoulder.

"So you have a scar," Alice says, as he gestures at the thick ropey tissue circling the top of his arm, "I have one. On my thighs. I know you like it."

Hatter tries not to grin, because this is a sombre moment, and bites back the selfish comment he wants to make. Of course, his pause makes her forehead crease into a frown, and she looks genuinely, completely worried now.

He owes it to her to do this fast. If it's going to hurt, best to do it sooner so the pain is over with quicker.

"This isn't my arm," he says, and squints. It's terribly selfish, but he can't look at her. He can't see her reaction.

"What?"

"The Queen of Hearts. She liked her killers to be strong. She didn't mind pulling people to pieces to make them strong. You met Mad March."

"My father came him a porcelain head, because he was dead-" Alice frowns. "Are you telling me you're dead?"

Hatter has to open his eyes at that. "No, no, I'm alive. I lost my arm in a mining accident."

"You were a miner?"

"My dad was," Hatter says, almost fondly. "There was a dry time for siphoning emotions for the tea; he used to mine feeling from the heart of Wonderland. The caverns of melancholy he found were beautiful. A beautiful tomb," he corrects. "I lost my arm escaping from the caverns when they collapsed. Dad wasn't so lucky."

"Hatter, I'm so sorry." Alice's sympathy, resonant with her knowledge on what it's like to lose a father to tragic circumstances, is easier to swallow than it should be; Hatter doesn't deserve her sympathy.

"Lots of Wonderlanders died in the tragedy. One of them was a huge guy, the most famous warrior in the whole of Wonderland. The Queen of Hearts bade your father give me the warrior's arm, in return for five year's service." Hatter can't help his own frown, but he holds Alice's gaze as best as he can, because he owes her the truth, even though it's a horrible, hurtful truth. "I had to help her-" He can barely swallow over the words. "I-"

"You did what you had to, to survive," beautiful Alice, stubborn Alice, says. Her voice is gravel soft, serious and deep. "You did what anyone else did in your situation. You had no choice."

"There's always a choice. I could have run away. The things I did, the people I hurt-" Hatter looks down at his right hand, and clenches the fingers, and doesn't want to look at her face any more. He can't.

_The things he did_  is an understatement.  _Hurt_  is an understatement too. The pause swells horribly between them. He lets his tense body paint a picture for her. Whatever she's imagining is only half as terrible as the things he's done.

"How old were you?"

"What does that-"

Alice grabs his chin with one hand and forces him around to look at her. She looks wild, unfettered, grimly determined. "How old were you?"

"Twelve. She had me from when I was twelve until I was seventeen."

"Hatter," Alice says, and Hatter doesn't want to hear it.

"Please," Hatter says, " please don't say it. I know what a monster I am."

"A monster-" Alice repeats.

He pushes in before she can continue to say any more such horrible things. The truth is too much to hear in her beautiful voice. "And this arm, I can't, I can't always control it. Like earlier when I shoved you away. I shoved you too hard, Alice. I'm scared all the time that one day I'll-"

He pauses again. He lets her imagination do the work.

"And that's why you kicked up such a fuss about moving in with me. Because you think you're going to hurt me."

"No," he says. Alice makes a sound of disbelief. He rushes to qualify that. "I know one day I'm going to hurt you."

"We'll skip past the part where you were too young to know what you were really doing, to have any real choice of your actions. My question is... how many innocent people have you hurt that you haven't intended to?"

It's not exactly the question Hatter's expecting. He looks at her, hurt. "I don't know how many I hurt."

"I don't mean innocent people you were ordered to hurt," Alice says. "How many people have you accidentally hurt?"

"I-"

"That's what I thought."

"But I could ," Hatter protests.

"Hatter," Alice says patiently, "anyone could. I could kill you. I know forty-two perfectly good ways to do it with just my bare hands."

"But if I accidentally-"

"Accident shmaccident. I've seen you use that punch of yours, in Wonderland. Saw you take out a pillar. And I saw you not pounding Alistair Bingley's face into the tarmac. It's sad for the world, that restraint, by the way."

Hatter stares at her, lost. The hurt's gone; replacing it is confusion and that ever-present giddy feeling, like he's not enough for this wonderful woman.

"You won't hurt me," Alice says, and picks up his right hand, and presses it to her throat. He can feel her pulse, slow and steady, under his treacherous fingers. Her eyes lock to his and she is breathtaking. "I know you won't hurt me."

"How can you know that?" Hatter breathes, the words sticking in his throat.

Alice smile is on the edge of broken, but that might be because it's as raw a feeling for her as it is for him, how much they love each other. "I just do. I know you . You've a kind heart, Hatter."

Hatter swallows and brings his thumb up. For a moment he pushes it into the softest skin under her jaw, because it would be so easy to press too much, to push too much into the soft depression of her neck and stop oygen getting to her heart long enough for her precious heart to stop beating. "That heart is yours," Hatter says, and pulls his thumb up to the edge of her mouth.

"And that's all I've ever needed to know," Alice says, kissing the top of his thumb. She turns his hand and presses a kiss into the palm, and she rests her cheek on it. "I know as long as you breathe you'll never hurt me. And even if you forget it ever... I'll know it for you." She smiles up at him, and he pushes her hair back. There's wonder in her face, more wonder than in the whole of Wonderland.

"Thank you," he says, because that's what he means at the least, if nothing else.

"Anytime," Alice dimples, lifting her face from his hand as Hatter gets to his feet. Her voice is softer, honest, when she says, less certain than anything she's ever said, "Let's go home."

Hatter looks at her, and holds out his right hand. That hand could kill her in the space of a breath, but it can love her too, and that's what Hatter will keep in his head from now on. She takes his hand and mirrors the smile stretching Hatter's face.

_Let's go home_ , she said. Alice means the apartment, of course, but standing there - her hand in his - it feels like he's already there.


End file.
